Reviews with content warning for Alcohol - Wide Sargasso Sea

Oh boy...

Wide Sargasso Sea is the latest in my quest to read through the "great classics" of Western literary canon, and it's the first one I can truly say I didn't like.

I should start by getting the elephant in the room out of the way - this book is essentially published Jane Eyre fanfiction. Now, that's not inherently a bad thing. The story makes little secret of it and the premise was intriguing. Who was Rochester's mad wife really? What was her side of the story? Sadly, although it does deliver the promised tale, Wide Sargasso Sea fails to offer much to a reader that they couldn't already have figured out for themself.

Antoinette Cosway lives with her mother and disabled younger brother in the crumbling ruins of their family's estate. When slavery was abolished, the family was plunged into near-poverty and rejected both by the freed slaves (who were understandably resentful of their former masters) and the white community (who saw them as both morally deficient former slave owners and as social inferiors). As she grows, the constant feelings of outcast will weigh down her mind and combine with her husband's own problems and lead to madness, infidelity, and a disaster of marriage that threatens to destroy both of them.

I was really disappointed in this book. I found Antoinette to be irritatingly childish and helpless. I know that the lack of agency she has in her own life is kind of one of the points of the book, but for me it moved past that and into "good grief, woman, stop wringing your hands and do something". Her husband, meanwhile kept oscillating between "very reasonable" and "what on earth is wrong with you?" In the end, rather than a portrait of a woman kept down by a cold and unfeeling man, or a tragedy of two hopelessly mis-matched souls, I wound up almost feeling like they deserved each other.

The reason this book got more than two stars (instead of the 1.5 I would have given it otherwise) is the prose. It's beautiful, dreamy, almost stream-of-consciousness stuff that makes every line interesting to read on its own and really captures the almost fever-dream like nature of the story and the lush tropical setting. However, this proves as much a hindrance as a help, with major events often glossed over in favor of more mood setting. There were several important plot points that I was confused on because the writing style obfuscated them so much.

Overall, a book with a promising start and an enjoyable writing style that fails to offer much of substance or deliver on the promised narrative.

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bethsicle's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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loxeletters's review against another edition

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reflective

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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seanml's review against another edition

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reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

A very interesting look into the background of one of literature's most enduring novels. It's been a long time since I've read something with such trippy and intangible language. 7.5/10.

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malloryfitz's review against another edition

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2.0

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ejb44's review against another edition

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challenging dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Wide Sargossa Sea by Jean Rhys is an adaption of Charlotte Bronte’s infamous Jane Eyre, cantering itself on the ‘mad wife’ of Rochester. Through the little information readers were given regarding this character, Rhys managed to extrapolate it and create a backstory for this character, adding a postcolonial and feminist feel to the somewhat outdated narrative that is Jane Eyre.

As a feminist and colonial historian, I was dying to read this book. I think the way Bronte dealt with mental illness in the book was expected for the time but obviously slightly negative and victim-blaming, again, understandably. The thought that Rhys might be able to spin the narrative on its head and give the ‘mad wife’, named Antoinette (and Bertha) in Rhys’ adaption, the perspective and respect she deserved. Sadly, I think the book failed to deliver exactly what the book aimed for.

Firstly, the writing style is rather jarring, and I can’t seem to pinpoint why – it’s not colloquial, but its also not a smooth reading experience. It was often really difficult to figure out what was being said, and in the first 20 to 30% there was a multitude of characters introduced which confused me even more. It’s a shame because I think this is one of the main failings of the book as it feels like there’s a wall between the authors intentions and the reader.

To add to this, the book didn’t deliver in what it said it would be – a postcolonial and feminist adaption. Perhaps because Rhys had to have her ending tied to what happens in Jane Eyre, it still didn’t feel like the mental health aspect was fully explored – we find out her mum was driven to madness because of the loss of her land and her son and then Antoinette seems to go mad within a matter of pages towards the end. This was a huge let down for me because I don’t think Antoinette ever really gains the appreciation she should.

Following on from this, the way Rochester is written allows for more sympathy towards his character, which isn’t necessarily a bad point, but when paired with the fact that Antoinette’s mental healthy is never really fully fleshed out and explored in a way that makes the reader figure out what has happened to her rapidly declining mental health, the readers might find themselves sympathising with Rochester instead of Antoinette, whom in my eyes is the main orchestrator of her madness. Ultimately, because Rochester agrees to return to England with Antoinette, which by this point he is repeatedly calling her Bertha, her dead mothers name, we see him as not that bad of a guy because he would rather, she come back with him then leave her with an obeah, someone who engages in spiritual practice, either for evil or good. This just reinforces our idea that he isn’t too bad of a person. Also, when Rhys hints that he cheated on Rochester during her marriage, it all feels like an amalgamation to reduce Antoinette reliability as a character.

The one thing I did love about the book was the Rashomon Effect, or the questioning of reliability amongst the characters. The fact that we hear from both Rochester’s and Antoinette perspective allows the reader to come to their own conclusions, even though it feels like Rhys has a strong hand in our views of the characters. This ‘unreliable narrator’ aspect was by far the most intriguing aspect of the book because it covered the span of the book and was actually fully formed.

Overall, I think if you read Jane Eyre this might be an interesting short read just to see how culturally impactful the book is 200 years later, and the ever-growing shift in the importance of discussing mental health and marrying someone of a different country and culture to you. However, I think the writing let the book down massively, and the ending that I didn’t feel too comfortable with damped the overall experience.

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manarnia's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This book was a very confusing and challenging read, but I appreciated the perspectives that it offered.

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